Questions tagged [metadata]
Information stored in or out of band about a file describing secondary characteristics.
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How to rebuild Music.app library
What’s the easiest way to fix corruption in the library of Music.app?
In Music.app library, I had an album that showed two discs.
The last four songs on disk one could't be selected and none of the ...
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Where is the URI of a downloaded file stored?
If I "Get Info" on an image I downloaded, I see the URI of the original:
Where/how is this stored? I'd like to come up with a command-line way of getting it from multiple files.
Neither ...
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Batch change album/artist info – not working when files are missing?
Some time during the transition from iTunes to Music (or perhaps another time), more than a thousand of my songs got mangled and the links from the library to the files were broken.
I have my media ...
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Writing metadata with xattr not working
I do xattr -w com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment "This is a comment" WnalU.png but when I look at the file comments:
I tried restarting Finder and nothing.
I've googled about writing ...
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Does MacOS store information locally about external drives?
I used a borrowed Mac to transfer sensitive data directly between two USB thumb drives. Ideally, I'd like to not leave a single trace of the files and transfers on the borrowed Mac, but I understand ...
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Where does Music.app store album art?
I'd like to export the artwork images for adding to my collection on the new laptop.
I have a very esoteric music collection and I recently got a new Mac. I spent a fair amount of time with my old one ...
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2
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Identify "UNIX-specific directories" in macOS
According to Apple's File System Programming Guide, macOS includes so-called UNIX-specific directories:
The directories in this category are inherited from traditional UNIX installations. They are an ...
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LaCie drive not showing up
My LaCie drive is not showing up, but in Disk Utility it says:
Could not mount “disk4s2”. (com.apple.DiskManagement.disenter error -119930868.)
It feels connected and is vibrating but nothing shows.
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Receive photos from iPhone users while keeping EXIF metadata (time, location,...)
I need to collect photos from all my friends, some of whom use iPhone. (I have no Apple devices btw). Usually, I send people a link using which they upload all their photos to my cloud through a web ...
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1
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Annotating macOS Maps locations with personal notes
I’d like to annotate map locations with “check out this art piece when you’re at this gallery” or “my favourite is the bibimbap” for a restaurant. It would be really cool to be able to link to a Notes....
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Batch rename folders/directories using metadata in terminal (or Automator)
I have a bunch (over a thousand) folders that I would like to rename according to their metadata. Example of folder names:
13.01.2021
19.08.2020
25.12.2020
30 July 2019
30 May 2021
2022.03.03
At the ...
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VLC for macOS shows playlist title/name that is nowhere to be found
When I open a renamed voice memo file (macOS or iOS generated) in VLC, the playlist name shown is the one generated by Voice Memos (usually the last know location of the machine on which the memo was ...
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"Private" data in ID3 tags created by Music
Music.app deleted 21 or more audio files in an unexpected way. Some of those files have "Private" ID3 data which exiftool says has an “Invalid ID3 frame size.” Some of the files with the ...
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Why do Finder tags still appear on my Finder side pane when the tagged files are missing or not accessible?
As a follow up to Does macOS store the tags of Finder separately from the tagged files?, I now understand that Finder tags are stored in the metadata of files, together in the same disk as the one ...
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AppleScript to write the browser tab's URL as a comment in metadata (for files downloaded from that page)?
If there's a way to have ALL files I ever download contain the URL of the page I downloaded them from, I'd be in heaven. (This is oftentimes a different URL than the "wherefrom" URL.) Any ...
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752
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How to get all Apple Photos file names
Is there a way to get a manifest or listing of all file names from Apple Photos without having to download\export them all?
I have a few thousand photos that are duplicated by file name but with a ...
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mdfind using -name option
I get this result:
user@10 $ mdfind kind:application -name "Seashore" -onlyin /Volumes/WD\ Elements
/Volumes/WD Elements/backup 2018/Desktop/Seashore.app
/Volumes/WD Elements/backup Juli ...
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1
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980
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How to stop com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms attribute from being saved in files?
Recently I found out that macOS saves full download link to metadata of file which kept when file moves between computers which I found a big security risk for me. Is it possible to disable saving ...
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33
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Iphone Music Metadata/Encoding data showing & hide
I play .mp3s via my iPhone Music application. However on this album, there is additional metadata / encoding data (unsure what the correct terminology is here) that is displayed below the Play and ...
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Metadata not showing in Finder window for images on external drive
I have two Macs: an Intel Mac mini (2018, running Catalina 10.15.7 I think) and an M1 MacBook Pro (2020, running Big Sur 11.6.1). I have an external SSD which I use for lots of work stuff.
On both ...
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Restore music metadata after SSD loss
So a month ago I lost my 2020 MacBook Air's SSD (which had been running Catalina) to a coffee spill; the computer is now fixed (and upgraded to Monterey) but the drive is wiped. The documents had been ...
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How do mdfind and mdls derive what metadata a file has and where is it stored?
The man page of mdfind says the following:
The mdfind command consults the central metadata store and returns a list of files that match the given metadata query. The query can be a string or a query ...
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237
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Adding metadata/keywords to pdf
What software, either Apple built-in or open-source, could add metadata/keywords to a pdf document?
I have tried Inkscape, but that overwrites metadata.
I want to add keywords specifically to an ...
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331
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How to share photos from iOS as JPG with EXIF?
I want to share photos with friends in JPG, but need to keep its metadata (time taken, GPS coordinates...) in EXIF.
I tried to send them via web-based filesharing service. JPGs was uploaded, but all ...
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42
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How can I find files that don't contain specific metadata?
I recently discovered that a currently-unknown number of files on in my music collection have been corrupted or otherwise damaged. These files do not play in the Apple Music app, even though they look ...
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Where's "More Info" gone?
Recently I moved from 10.13 to 10.14 on an older Mac system. Previously, tapping on an audio file and keying "command + i" would tell me some audio info, such as stereo, channels, bit depth; ...
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Get .app path from a bundle ID? [duplicate]
Say I have a bundle ID com.apple.Safari, how do I get the path to the app bundle (.app) (/System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Safari.app) from that?
I need this for my script to automate a task.
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Is it possible to view video/audio information in finder or a similar program
From what I can see finder cannot display codec, resolution, bitrate, basic metadata about batches of video and audio files that would be really helpful.
As there any way to achieve this or a program ...
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How to keep photo date when dragging photos out of Photos app into a folder on Mac? [duplicate]
I have encountered what is to me a deeply distressing and frustrating behavior of the Photos app for Mac. I would like to know if there is a workaround.
A bit of background: I use iCloud to sync my ...
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33
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Migrating musics from Windows Media Player to Apple Music
I've recently moved from Windows to macOS, and I'm trying to import my local music library into the Music app installed on macOS Big Sur.
I have about 30k mp3 files that I've star-rated over a decade, ...
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154
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Can I detect the frame rate of a video using built in programs or tools?
I want to match the frame rate of a video I am editing to a project. But I don't know the frame rate.
Is there an easy way to check the frame rate of a video using built-in tools or programs?
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Where does the iOS Photos app store user-entered captions?
I understand that the ability to add captions to photos was added in iOS 14. Where are these captions stored? For example, are they embedded into the .HEIC file as EXIF or XMP or IPTC metadata? Or a ...
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What exactly is chflags opaque, nodump?
I've gotten to grips with the chflags man page so far, even if it's rather uncommon for man pages. Nevertheless, I find 2 parameters very peculiar. What exactly does chflags opaque and nodump do?
...
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277
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How can I find the metadata of a file in Scanner app?
I am a teacher, and I am trying to verify the date and time when a student took a particular photo. The student has an iPhone (unknown model and OS version) and used the Scanner app by Luni to take ...
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Delete metadata
There is a program provided by Apple to see most of the metadata in a file. It is nice to have the metadata clearly arranged, but the catch is that you cannot delete it or I don't know how to delete ...
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How to assign latitude & longitude to a photo "Location" in Photos 6?
I have a specific latitude and longitude that I would like to assign to a photo that does not otherwise have any location information.
eg. (18.352185, -64.792505) aka 18 deg 22' 26.46" N, 64 deg ...
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Importing album art from ripped music
I have over 130+ artists with 1000s of tracks all sorted and with valid metadata externally to the Music / iTune app on my Mac (Catalina). The folder layout is Artist / Album / CD in Album (ranges 1-...
user370793
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Where is Metadata of Encoding in Plain Text Saved from TextEdit
TextEdit allows for plain text .txt files to be saved with a particular character encoding:
Is there any meaningful change to the file's metadata and if so, how do you see it?
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How can I get the Finder to show metadata?
I am running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 on an iMac. Sometime last July, the Finder started hiding the metadata of downloaded photos. Its behavior varied for a while, but now it seems to have settled down to ...
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How to edit "kMDItemXxx" file metadata on macOS?
Today I tried to edit the metadata of a picture file. I used mdls to display them, then looked for a command to edit one. But I couldn't find any.
For vanilla metadata, like basic timestamps, touch is ...
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How do you see more than the Last Opened date when an application was launched on Mac?
I'd like to find more dates that I've opened an application besides the latest date shown under the Last Opened field.
I was going through my list of apps and found some old ones which I had forgotten ...
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199
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Command line argument to "find" and "grep" data inside "xattr -l" atrributes?
I have a file that an application has set extended attributes for.
$ xattr -l /Volumes/Educating\ Rita\ \(1983\)/Educating\ Rita\ \(1983\).1.eng.srt
net.filebot.filename: 3_English.srt
net.filebot....
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mdls does not work on mounted sparse bundles
mdls does not return anything when I run it on a mounted (originally encrypted) sparse bundle:
❯ ll ./test
.rw-r--r--@ 0 evar 14 Sep 18:34 ./test
❯ mdls ./test ...
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Sort by comment?
I have started setting deadlines on a document by putting the date in the comments, using the YYYY-MM-DD format and then what type of deadline it is (I have to submit initial, interim, and discharge ...
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522
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How to stop TextEdit.app from adding extended attributes
I only recently discovered (yes, I'm late to the game) that TextEdit.app is adding extended attributes to any files I open in it. I had discovered this when I randomly had opened a shell script in it ...
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Unable to Add "Where from" Metadata with Special Characters Using Applescript
Trying to add the "Where from" metadata in the Finder's "Get info" section of a picture on the Desktop and I am not able to since the text has special characters.
In this case, it is "?" and "=" ...
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Get script/language for fonts via terminal
I would like to get the language support / script of any fonts I have in my computer with terminal command.
There is a way to see it through Font Book...
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3k
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How can I clear metadata (personal data) from an Excel file in Microsoft 365 for macOS?
I want to make sure that an Excel file I created is purged of all personal and user metadata before passing it on, for confidentiality reasons.
For Windows, there are many guides for removing ...
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Is there a command line utility that can copy Apple TV metadata and embed it into MP4 video files?
Is there a way (preferably an open-source command line tool) to copy Apple TV (the desktop application that replaced part of iTunes in Catalina) metadata into the MP4 files so that when transferred to ...
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Manually enter "Where From" text for screenshot Metadata?
What I would love to be able to do, is the opposite of what this person asked about; I want to ADD the "where from" text (in my case, a URL I could copy-paste from a browser tab) for screenshots I ...
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